[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 16701 through 16750 of 19388.

Tribes of Neurot is the ambient, ritualistic side-project of mighty metal legends Neurosis. Grace is intended to be played simultaneously with the latter band's recent Times Of Grace album. So the doomily atmospheric drones and spoken words of this disc meld in with the hypnotic tribal chug of that one. A formidable combination! However, it's a fine listen all by itself (so don't fret if you don't have two cd players). Mixed by Tribes Of Neurot along with Dustin Donaldson of I Am Spoonbender and Neurosis' longtime sound engineer Dave Clark. Recommended!

A savage proggytrippypunkasfuck megablast in the form of Triclops!' Cafeteria Brutalia ep. This four song rager is the perfect blend of post-Jesus Lizardy mathy fucked up punk and spacey effects-riddled shreddyness. Hailing from right here in the bay area, Triclops! featuring John Geek From local punk heros The Fleshies on vocals, piece together a super interesting combination of weird rock elements. One moment angular and furious, while another blissy and tripped the hell out, and still at another just plain super rocking! The vocals are processed and effected, the guitar is furious and fierce, and the rythym section is just about as tight as can be, churrning out an ever-changing, multi-metric pummelfest of pure rock brutality. All the songs on this way too short document are great, to be sure, but the ONE for us is definetly the 10 plus minute epic, "Bug Bomb". Within this track, all the disparate elements that makes this band awesome perfectly coalesce. Super proggy acid-punk to begin with, breaking down into some suprisingly melodic pop, before getting heavy and crazy to round it out. Excellent! Triclops! are also one of the best local live acts we have here in SF, and they seem to play all the rad shows around these parts. In fact, most of us discovered them earlier this month at the killer Circle show at Bottom Of The Hill, which they opened. All in all, a really great ep! For anyone thats been missing that old 90's Touch and Go / Amrep sound, or people that just love proggy flipped out PUNK RAWK, this is definetly recommended!

RealAudio clip: Bug Bomb
RealAudio clip: Salton

From the same folks who brought us deliciously sleazy discs from Jet Fuel and Sinnerjizm, here's the debut album from LA's Trigger Renegade, a pretty potent heavy rockin' band in their own right. Trigger Renegade don't wander into the territories of kaleidoscopic psychedelia, bubblegum pop, or dusted glam metal, taking a much more workmanlike approach to the art of hard rockin'. The fist-pumping swagger from the grittiest elements of the NWOBHM is certainly where Trigger Renegade is drawing their inspiration; and Destroy Your Mind certainly succeeds in getting at sex, drugs (although beer and whiskey seem more appropriate) and of course rock 'n' roll. Musically, Trigger Renegade push forward a relentless backbeat of high-octane rhythms that might have a locomotive relentlessness complete with non-stop blastbeats on one track and then a blues-rock boogie on the next. On top of the rhythms, Trigger Renegade intertwine plenty of dynamic, twin guitar / Thin Lizzy-ish leads and alternating vocal styles between gravel throated barks and screeched falsettos ala Rob Halford. With plenty of nods to Cheap Trick, The Damned, Iron Maiden, and Witchfinder General, had Trigger Renegade been around some 25 years ago, they could have been huge.

MPEG stream: Damage
MPEG stream: Robbin' Trains

Maybe you don't know it yet, but (IF you buy these Bobb Trimble albums) you have just been handed the key to a secret realm, an alternate rock n' roll universe of dark despair, fragile hope, and gossamer beauty, a haunting personal soundworld that will always stay with you, within you... these two albums are reissues of exceedingly rare, DIY pop-psych-prog holy grails from the unlikely time and place of early '80s suburban New England. Bobb Trimble is singer-songwriter and would be (shoulda been) rock star from Worcester, Massachusetts. Born in 1958, he was in his early 20s when he recorded the two self-released albums that constitute his obscure discography, and which over the years have developed a small but devoted cult following among those lucky enough to have encountered these gems. There's been bootlegs of one of them (Harvest Of Dreams), and a hard-to-find anthology that came out 12 years ago drawing material from both Bobb LPs, but now Secretly Canadian, bless 'em, have at long last brought out legit reissues of both amazing Trimble records, on compact disc and vinyl (unfortunately, the vinyl went pretty quick, we only have a couple copies of each LP left in stock at the moment, though we're told there will be a second pressing sometime soon, hopefully). As far as we're concerned, this is one of the most significant musical events of 2007! Influenced by the Beatles (on the back of his debut LP, he politely asks if he can someday become the 5th Beatle), Bowie, Pink Floyd and other psych and prog rock of the '60s and '70s, Bobb boldly brought that sound into "a world he never made", the malaise days of the late '70s and the new wave Reagan '80s, creating homemade timeless tracks that could just as easily have been recorded today, or tomorrow, too. We're reminded of those artists, yes, and also the disparate likes of Ariel Pink, Antony & The Johnsons, Richard Youngs, Ed Askew, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Roy Harper... but Bobb Trimble's music is also like nothing else we've ever heard. Both albums are highly recommended... though weird enough to perhaps not be for everyone, we'll admit. If you like 'em at all though, chances are you'll LOVE them. It's about time they were reissued, we expect that they'll do MUCH better today than they did when they were first (barely) released. The world, or at least the indie-rock scene, is finally ready for Bobb's unsung outsider genius, and it's nice he's getting a second shot at recognition now. And also especially nice for the new audience that's gonna flip out over this music (we predict). This record, 1982's Harvest Of Dreams, is the one with a grainy photo of Bobb pondering what appears to be a unicorn-goat on the cover, apparently found at some RennFaire petting zoo. Looks a bit like a Jandek album cover, doesn't it? It certainly is a wonderful indication of the magical mysteries and sheer oddity of the album's musical content. Of Trimble's two LPs, Harvest is where his dreamy visionary aesthetic reached its absolute pinnacle (at age 23!). Bobb has his helpers on various tracks here, several of 'em recorded with The Kidds -- a bunch of 12-year-olds from his neighborhood he befriended and taught to play! So maybe he felt there was more hope for the future. The mood here isn't quite so dark as side one of Iron Curtain Innocence, though certainly a continuation of that style, and just as emotional and moving, moreso even... Bobb, his high fragile pixie voice (one reason for the Ariel Pink comparison) caressing like fairytale kisses, takes you by the hand and leads you into his heart, on this masterpiece of bedroom recorded lovelorn proggy psychedelic weird gentle beauty. Track two, "If Words Were All I Had" is likely to be one of the best songs you'll hear all year. One of the most aching, affecting love songs ever, actually. It could make you cry. "Armour Of The Shroud" is another highlight. A nearly 8 minute epic woven from Bobb's angelic voice, chiming bells, guitar strum, a bed of electronic swirls, and such droning "environmental" sonic textures as a beeping disconnected dial tone and falling rain. It's not all as mellow as that -- for instance an outburst of distortion and swearing at the end of the otherwise lovely "Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long" leads into the backwards-effected intro of this album's biggest anomaly, "Oh Baby", a primitive garage-punk number sung by one of the Kidds, with lyrics that seem to reference the Saturday Night Live character Mr. Bill. Backwards effects and children's voices are in fact all over the place here on this densely-layered disc, along with swirling psych guitar, distorted electronics, and Bobb's heartfelt lyrics and melodies. Yep, definitely there's an Ariel Pink vibe, also we're even reminded of the folky pagan weirdness of Comus at times, & also the damaged new wave psych of the Happy Dragon-Band, if you've ever heard them. Urgh it's hard to do this justice in a mere review. Words are all we have... This is the sort of album that it really seems that someone (a better writer than any of us here) could, should write a whole book about. Like one of those 33 1/3 volumes. It's that deep, that unique, that compelling. This reissue again includes enthusiastic, enlightening liner notes, this time from Florent Mazzoleni. And more vintage photos, including another one of Bobb sitting with the spooky unicorn-goat from the cover, this time serenading it with an acoustic guitar. And on this cd there's also another three bonus tracks of unreleased songs!! Nicely put together, way better than any bootleg version of course! So, again, both albums are highly recommended (obviously, as we made 'em both Records Of The Week) but if you're gonna buy just one, maybe start with Harvest Of Dreams... but we'd say get both!

MPEG stream: If Words Were All I Had
MPEG stream: Premonitions Boy - The Reality
MPEG stream: Oh Baby

Maybe you don't know it yet, but (IF you buy these Bobb Trimble albums) you have just been handed the key to a secret realm, an alternate rock n' roll universe of dark despair, fragile hope, and gossamer beauty, a haunting personal soundworld that will always stay with you, within you... these two albums are reissues of exceedingly rare, DIY pop-psych-prog holy grails from the unlikely time and place of early '80s suburban New England. Bobb Trimble is singer-songwriter and would be (shoulda been) rock star from Worcester, Massachusetts. Born in 1958, he was in his early 20s when he recorded the two self-released albums that constitute his obscure discography, and which over the years have developed a small but devoted cult following among those lucky enough to have encountered these gems. There's been bootlegs of one of them (Harvest Of Dreams), and a hard-to-find anthology that came out 12 years ago drawing material from both Bobb LPs, but now Secretly Canadian, bless 'em, have at long last brought out legit reissues of both amazing Trimble records, on compact disc and vinyl (unfortunately, the vinyl went pretty quick, we only have a couple copies of each LP left in stock at the moment, though we're told there will be a second pressing sometime soon, hopefully). As far as we're concerned, this is one of the most significant musical events of 2007! Influenced by the Beatles (on the back of his debut LP, he politely asks if he can someday become the 5th Beatle), Bowie, Pink Floyd and other psych and prog rock of the '60s and '70s, Bobb boldly brought that sound into "a world he never made", the malaise days of the late '70s and the new wave Reagan '80s, creating homemade timeless tracks that could just as easily have been recorded today, or tomorrow, too. We're reminded of those artists, yes, and also the disparate likes of Ariel Pink, Antony & The Johnsons, Richard Youngs, Ed Askew, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Roy Harper... but Bobb Trimble's music is also like nothing else we've ever heard. Both albums are highly recommended... though weird enough to perhaps not be for everyone, we'll admit. If you like 'em at all though, chances are you'll LOVE them. It's about time they were reissued, we expect that they'll do MUCH better today than they did when they were first (barely) released. The world, or at least the indie-rock scene, is finally ready for Bobb's unsung outsider genius, and it's nice he's getting a second shot at recognition now. And also especially nice for the new audience that's gonna flip out over this music (we predict). This one, Iron Curtain Innocence, with a striking photo-studio shot on the cover of Bobb armed with both an electric guitar and a Tommy gun, was his debut, a private pressing in an edition of just 300 copies! Side one, credited to Bobb Trimble with The Violent Reactions, was recorded in 1980 and represents the darker, more apocalyptic material on the album, the songs dramatic, melancholic, and laced with much mysterious sound FX. The very first track, "Glass Menagerie Fantasies", starting off with some shortwave static, establishes Bobb's special talent for fragile and melodic otherworldliness, utilizing weird "glitch" textures long before electronica made that a rock-crit term. His multitracked vocals, ranging high, are of translucent beauty throughout this record, yet so much of the musical mood is one of dread and psychosis, lyrics touching on fears of WWIII, the gothic likes of "When The Raven Calls" heavier with sizzling synth drones and volume-cranked psych guitar. Side two, designated Soliloquize, was recorded two years earlier, in 1978, and features what Bobb considers the more "straight" songs on the record, simpler perhaps, but with Bobb's vocals just as delicate and the mood just as melancholic... and definitely of psychedelic bent, note ferinstance the backwards guitar on "Through My Eyes (Hopeless as Hell: D.O.A.)". On side one Bobb is accompanied by a drummer and bassist, on side two just a drummer, Bobb handling vocals, guitar, and all other instruments, credited also with "interference patterns" and "hope". Hope? Maybe. Bobb dedicates this album "to a children of a dynasty destined to ruins who build their dreams on the darkness they buy... and steal." You can see where he's coming from, his despairing musical mood. It's fairly certain that back in 1980 he could have never imagined that his music would be being re-released in 2007, not just because such lasting "success" seemed elusive but also 'cause it seemed doubtful, in those days preceding the Ronald Reagan vs. "Evil Empire" face-off at the height of the Cold War, that world would survive this long. Thankfully, it has, but sadly, though, times haven't really changed that much regarding this civilization's and this planet's long-term prognosis, Mutual Assured Destruction replaced with global warming and WMD and another Evil Empire (ours, or Islamofascism, take your pick), so Bobb's sentiments on Iron Curtain Innocence still seem unhappily relevant as ever... but this reissue is also a token of hope, since we, Bobb and this music are are still here. This reissue also includes three bonus tracks, reverb-drenched solo demo versions of songs from side one, recorded by Bobb in his parents' basement. The cd booklet contains extensive liner notes by Eric Weddle, as well as lots of photos and a newspaper clipping of a review in the local newspaper at the time.

MPEG stream: Glass Menagerie Fantasies
MPEG stream: When The Raven Calls
MPEG stream: One Mile From Heaven (short version)

Wonders never cease. About four or five years ago, the Secretly Canadian label did a big favor to obscure music lovers everywhere and brought out deluxe, at long last legit reissues of the two rare private press albums that obscure DIY psych pop genius Bobb Trimble released in the early '80s. We love those two so much, we made both reissues Records Of The Week. Trimble's Iron Curtain Innocence (1980) and Harvest Of Dreams (1982) are timeless, cult artifacts, of which we said: "...you have just been handed the key to a secret realm, an alternate rock n' roll universe of dark despair, fragile hope, and gossamer beauty, a haunting personal soundworld that will always stay with you, within you...", and favorably compared to everyone from Lennon/McCartney to Pink Floyd to Roy Harper to Marc Bolan to Richard Youngs to Ariel Pink. Well, we had no idea that those two albums weren't the entirely of Trimble's discography. But now, happily we learn that there was a THIRD even rarer Trimble lp, and it's just been reissued as well!!! And it too is a doozy. Turns out that a year or two after Harvest Of Dreams was released into an uncaring world, the 20-something Trimble teamed up with a local Worcester, Massachusetts gang of teenagers (some of whom we think had been in the even younger group, The Kidds, who are heard on some songs on a song or two on Harvest Of Dreams) called The Crippled Dog Band, named after the three-legged dog seen on the cover of this album, presumably. Who doesn't love a three-legged dog? Together, they played shows - and, better yet, for us today - made an album, this one, in '84, which captures the outsider psych-pop brilliance of Trimble's songwriting in exuberant collision/collusion with youthful rock n' roll energy. Yeah, compared to Trimble's two "solo" albums, this could be considered to be more rockin', more "punk", more band-like. And more '80s as well, if only 'cause of the sci-fi video arcade game sounds that appear here on the intro and outro tracks! The songs, while typically Trimble-poppy (and graced with his delicate, high and whispy vox) are also often loud and raucous and awash in feedback and FX. At times we're kinda reminded of The Dickies. Most are in the 2-3 minute range, though they do a version of one of our favorite Trimble songs, "Armour Of The Shroud", that stretches out for over six minutes, as per the epic original that appeared on Harvest Of Dreams. They also do "Galilean Boy", a demo of which appeared as a bonus track on SC's reissue of HoD. The other "cover" here is a reinterpretation of The Beatles' "All Together Now", which Trimble and The Crippled Dog Band really make their own, converting it into a theme song of sorts, near the beginning of the album: "Singin' the Crippled Dog anthem / ruff ruff / ruff ruff!" There's something so wonderfully charming about that, eh? And the teenage spark of Trimble's cohorts here is infectious, the band tearing it up, gritty garagey psych stomp style across much of this disc. Ferinstance, there's the distortodelic Eastern vibe of "Camel Song", and "Angel Eyes" is another that offers up some pretty heavy-duty, driving psych gunk for your earholes. And those are only a few of the punked up Pepperisms to be found on this delightful disc. Some songs are darker ("Undercovers Man"), others, pure fun ("Poker Game Of Life"). Apparently, the story goes, The Crippled Dog Band came to an end shortly after this was recorded, for whatever reason, and with no hope of selling 'em, almost all of original pressing of 500 lps was unceremoniously disposed of by Bobb in a dumpster! Good grief. Thankfully, the actual recordings weren't lost, and this reissue has finally arrived to allow The Crippled Dog Band to be heard again - it's certainly getting a lot of play here at AQ! Recommended, ruff ruff!!

MPEG stream: All Together Now
MPEG stream: Live Wire
MPEG stream: Angel Eyes

First we've reviewed from this Midwestern misanthrope, a one man, synth swinging, electro-punk, garage pop wrecking machine, who sounds little bit like some musical DNA splicing experiment gone fantastically wrong, equal parts Suicide, Thee Oh Sees, David Bowie, Fabulous Diamonds, Chrome... well, you get, seriously twisted and WTF, darkly sci-fi, a little bit droney, spaced out and psychedelic. Opener "Fashion Has Happened To Fashion" sounds like Bowie's "Fashion", and not just because of the "Fashion" in the chorus/refrain (although that helps), it's stripped down and refashioned into a psychedelic kraut-garage groove, and the follow up also sort of sounds like the same Bowie jam at first, but it's soon pulled apart and reconstituted by some sonic mad scientist, into something much more sinister, wrapped in pulsing, pulsating FX drenched guitars, and tethered to a hypnotic robotic rhythm, with a killer recurring melodic flourish that will get stuck in your head like crazy. The sound is all fuzzy, crumbling guitars, swirly sci-fi synths, skeletal Casio beats, and yelped, occasionally almost falsetto vox. It's dirgey and murky one second, frenetic and frenzied the next, the sound simultaneously spacey and futuristic, raw, primitive and retro. There's an awesome pic of Mr. Trin Tran himself on the sleeve, jamming on synths, guitar strapped across his chest, weird mic contraption hung around his neck, a strange sort-of-Batman mask (of course), with some cymbals, seemingly strapped to his synths, all set up in what appears to be the dingy corner of some run down bar, adorned with a sad little string of Christmas lights, and a closet filled with empty hangers in the corner. If we had to imagine what kind of weirdo was making this music, nothing we could have imagined would have been as perfect as that pic. A sonic space alien, stranded in some podunk town, sending these musical distress signals to his home planet hoping to be rescued. We're digging these jams enough, that we're intercepting those signals, in the hopes that help might never come...

MPEG stream: Fashion Has Happened To Fashion
MPEG stream: Eyes The Size
MPEG stream: Hearts Are Serious

MPEG stream: The Wherewithal
MPEG stream: Roundabout

San Diego's favorite five-piece melodic instrumental slow-core post-rock ambient drone sleep-core chiming blissful yadda yadda yadda... This is their follow-up to the popular "Spine and Sensory" album from a couple years ago. This record breaks no new ground in the grand scheme of things, but it does find the band experimenting more with subtle electronic flourishes to add more flavor to their sometimes grating dueling harpsichord-sounding guitar tones. The repetition becomes a novelty after a while, but fans of early 4AD and less dynamic Mogwai will probably really like this.

More blissed out post rock from San Diego's Tristeza! Word has it they've been working on a new full length with Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession). In the meantime though, their newest release is a 7-song long cdep (or is it a 7-song short album?!). There's nothing jagged or jarring about Espuma, everything swirls, swells and soothes in the most gentle fashion. Compared to their recent more heavily electronic laden releases, this strikes more of a glistening balance between that and their former more guitar centric sounds. Nice!

MPEG stream: Living Stains

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Four songs from this Tortoise-y post rock band, also a part of Insound website's budget "tour support" cd series. We're a little skeptical of Insound's motives ($, it seems) but fans will want this.

San Diego's post-emo heartthrobs, posterboys of heartfelt, emotional atmospheric Windham Hill Records-esque post-rock get in bed with Windy & Carl, Fridge, Simon Raymonde (of the Cocteau Twins), Marumari, Randomnumber (ex-Hood), Scientific American, Styrofoam, Yellow6, Astorria, DJ Jims (of Tristeza), Lackluster, Diagram Of Suburban Chaos and Snodgrass. Beautifully packaged in

Emo driven instrumentals with hints at space rock popping up. Leaning more towards the spectrum of Sunny Day Real Estate & Rainer Maria.

Hot on the heels of their remix collection "Mixed Signals" comes this EP. It seems that recently this mellow instrumental quintet have been moving further from their gentle guitar-dominant post-rock tracks into more gentle electronic-accented post-rock sounds.

RealAudio clip: Stop Grass
RealAudio clip: Auxilio Mate

Reissue of the first single from the highly acclaimed San Diego pretty post-rock "supergroup". Three songs: "Foreshadow", "Smoke Through Glass" and "Cinematography (Original Version)".

Ever hear of the TRMRS? Neither had we. Not until a couple scruffy looking dudes came into the store and dropped off a copy of their new cd-r, a hand painted, home made little gem, that definitely had us wondering what might be inside. And shit, if what's inside doesn't make these guys the next big thing, then we'd be pretty goddamn surprised. Think Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Waaves, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, that sort of jangly, super hooky, slightly surfy psychedelic garage rock, and while there is definitely a glut of folks going for that sound, these guys do it way better than most, and totally make it their own. Self described as 'trash pop', that's pretty much what this sounds like, trashy and poppy, and loose and super rocking, the guitars are crunchy and jangly, the vocals a melodic yelp, the drums propulsive, reverb all over the place, and the songs are hooky as hell. More garagey and raw, than purely poppy, but that raw garage is infused with plenty of poppiness, reminding us a bit of a slightly more song oriented Coachwhips, you can definitely tell that live these guys probably have the crowd bouncing and sweaty and losing their shit. And it's easy to hear why. Definitely a new favorite. And we'd be shocked if these guys didn't get snapped up by Mexican Summer or In The Red or Woodsist or even Captured Tracks or Woven Bones, and if any of that stuff is your jam, then these guys just might be your new favorite band. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one in a super fancy hand painted, silkscreened, collaged cover, every one unique, and all hand numbered!

MPEG stream: Shorter Days
MPEG stream: Hello Self
MPEG stream: Green Machine
MPEG stream: Come In

These guys kicked out asses recently with the distortion drenched blown out garage rock jangle pop of their debut Sea Things, positioning them firmly alongside sonic brethren like Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Waaves, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, and all the rest. This new tape offers up a handful of new songs, paired with a selection of tracks from Sea Things, so for those who somehow missed out on that gem, or who were waiting for the cassette version (?), well here's what we had to say about Sea Things (the rest of you can skip this part): Jangly, super hooky, slightly surfy, psychedelic garage rock. And while there may be a glut of folks going for that sound, these guys do it way better than most, and totally make it their own. Self described as 'trash pop', that's pretty much what this sounds like, trashy and poppy, and loose and super rocking, the guitars are crunchy and jangly, the vocals a melodic yelp, the drums propulsive, reverb all over the place, and the songs are hooky as hell. More garagey and raw, than purely poppy, but that raw garage is infused with plenty of poppiness, reminding us a bit of a slightly more song oriented Coachwhips, you can definitely tell that live these guys probably have the crowd bouncing and sweaty and losing their shit. And it's easy to hear why. The new tracks here, are as you might have guessed, more of the same, cut from the same sonic cloth, with maybe a bit more production polish here and there, some cool backwards effects, a slightly less lo-fi sound, but then the sound is as much of this music as the songs are, so the sound stays appropriately fuzzy and washed out and reverby, and in places gets even more noisy and crunchy than before, the 4 jams here offering up another heaping helping of gloriously buzzy Sixties influenced surf rocky fuzz pop that could have (and probably did) come straight from the same sessions that produced Sea Things, but hell, we're not complaining, more TRMRS is what we were hankering for anyway, so here it is. And the new songs do kill, hooky and rocking, sweat drenched and distorted, and catchy as all get out. And like we mentioned before, we're surprised these guys haven't yet landed on some big label (Mexican Summer? In The Red?) yet, but we're guessing it's only a matter of time. Comes with two stickers, one of which has a download code for a digital version of the whole tape! Sweet occultic skull artwork too!

This Pathless Land contains five moody latenight multilingual tunes, and certainly leaves you craving more! Subtle, smoky and just a little bit mysterious and trippy. The second song "Western" is a definite stand-out bringing to mind the wonderful duets of Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy or Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. In-store play never fails to draw more than a few customer queries. A very impressive follow-up to their Que Son los Trolls y en Que Nos Ayudan? cd from a couple of years ago!

MPEG stream: Western
MPEG stream: Tex Bossa Redux (Aero-Mic'd Remix)

Local quintet Troll has made a delightfully ambitious record. The flavor is sort of Pizzicato 5 meets Os Mutantes meets Amon Duul, and each song is a minor gem, albeit a little rough 'round the edges', with multiple vocalists, epic harmonies, intensely simmering guitar, and well-written, unpredictable songs, dynamic pieces that grow and develop within themselves. Being smart folk with wonderful taste in music (we should know: they're AQ-customers!), Troll describe themselves quite accurately: "The sound is a combination of hard Nordic and Spanish garage, mellow blissful euro-tinged psychedelia, Japanese tropicalia and ambient jazz. The languages sung on the album are Danish, Spanish, Japanese, French and English." Nice.

RealAudio clip: Blue Skies
RealAudio clip: Silver Mountain
RealAudio clip: El Vampiro

Had anyone else found it strangely lurid / alluring that Beach House titled one their two 2015 albums Thank Your Lucky Stars, when Whitehouse screeched out their power electronic classic of that same name some twenty-five years earlier? Probably not. After all, we are all sick in the head here at Aquarius. But if the sultry Beach House chanteuse Victoria Legrand were to adopt some unseemly industrial alter-ego clad in black leather trenchcoats, what might that sound like? We'll offer Troller as our answer, with the caveat that Troller is probably more worthy than what our fantasy may have conjured up. Graphic is the epic second album from this Texan quartet of gloom-synth portent fronted by the steel throated Amber Goers. As much as we raved about Troller's eponymous debut five years ago, this one is even better. The band posted a video for the albums' "Storm Maker" which is a beautiful swoon of an synth ballad harking to those emotive tracks that OMD sculpted early in their career. A lovely track to say the least, but the Siouxsie / Kate Bush allusions may be the siren call to draw unwitting listeners into the dark pit at the soul of this album. Snarled electronic death rock and synthetic industrial catharsis is found throughout the rest of Graphic, highlighted by the title track's Cranes-ish pummel of heaven and hell, "Sundowner" (a track of a Diamanda Galas theatricality affixed to what the whole witch house scene aspired to but failed in delivering while busy coming up with ascii symbol nomenclature), and the diabolically death-disco anthem "Torch" with its ice queen vocal crescendos and tense drum-machined inventions for the dungeon. Luridly alluring indeed, and recommended.

MPEG stream: Graphic
MPEG stream: Storm Maker
MPEG stream: Sundowner
MPEG stream: Torch

To dedicated readers of the New Arrival list, there can be no doubt that goth and industrial sounds from the eighties are back in a huge way. But rather than riding the nostalgia train, most of the groups we love who are mining this sound and putting their own spin on it, adding unique elements to distinguish a sense of honest and progressive devotion from a mere genre exercise. Case in point is this debut tape from Austin-based heavy gloomers, Troller. Coming out of the same fervent scene that was birthed from the ashes of Silver Pines: Pure X, Survive, Sleep Over, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw (for a good overview of this scene, check out the Brain Club Vol. #000001 LP compilation), Troller mine classic death rock, but slow it down with a heavy shoe-gazing doominess. You can tell the female singer has a voice as big as Zola Jesus, or Siouxie, but what we like most about it is that she restrains her delivery from overwrought passion up front in the mix, instead letting it moulder at times in a dour misanthropic mire with the chilly synths and the booming plod of the drum machine patterns. In between each proper song is an untitled instrumental that shows the band's knack for sculpting dark ambient soundscapes that are alien, pensive and luridly bleak. To check it out: http://troller.bandcamp.com/releases The band dropped these off while on tour, so we have about ten. We probably can get more, but be prepared to wait for a restock until the band return home.

On last week's list we reviewed What's The Hubub Bub from Tronics, a lost classic from this early eighties post punk / protest folk / art rock one man band, and described said record as a "twistedly brilliant DIY post punk holy grail", which if you've been into the store recently, you've no doubt heard more than once, cuz it gets played like crazy, a head spinning mix of minimal punk folk, catchy as fuck post punk anthems and weirdo collages and experimental electronics. Seriously ahead of its time, and honestly, every time we play it in the store, someone comes up to see what we're playing, and more often then not ends up buying a copy. Say! What Is This? is a sort of companion, a collection of odds and sods, most of which have never been heard before, and while it has much in common with Hubub, it's much more straight ahead punk rock / post punk. Opener "Punk People" sets the mood, with a main riff, that sounds like it could be some Toy Dolls B-side, bouncy bass, crunchy, jangly guitars, and a killer hook, a little bit glammy, catchy as all get out, it ranks right up there with "Shark Fucks" on Hubub as a song we get stuck in our heads constantly. The rest of Say! What Is This? ain't too shabby either, the lo-fi, reverb drenched pop punk blowout "Do You Hear Me", the angular punk folk dirge "Squiddly Diddly", which sounds like it could have ended up on Hubub, the live garage rock jam "Wild Cat Rock", the fifties rock sounding doo wop-ish "Tonight", the short sharp burst of bass driven punk freakout of "Punk Noise", the almost new wave power poppy sounding "Luna Love", which almost sounds like a Replacements song, and the closer, a fuzzy garage stomp called appropriately "Goodbye", and peppered throughout, still more punky poppy gems, that while not nearly as weird as anything on Hubub, are still so goddamn great! Recommended for sure!

MPEG stream: Punky People
MPEG stream: Find Somewhere To Live
MPEG stream: Punk Noise
MPEG stream: Gotta Make It OK

What's The Hubub Bub is a twistedly brilliant DIY post punk holy grail from a group known simply as Tronics, not so much a group as the work of one man, Ziro Baby, and his peculiar brand of post-punk / folk-punk /art-rock / protest music sounds relevatory even today. Originally released at the beginning of the eighties, this record must have really blown minds back then. Equal parts singer/songwriter punk folk songsmithery, minimalist punk primitivism, and ahead of its time tape experiments and sound collage, What's The Hubub Bub has been floating around the underground for 30 years now, with just a track or two popping up on obscure comps, which is hard to believe considering how fucking great this whole record is. The first half tends more toward proper songs, although the record begins with the sounds of sirens, before in swoop brittle and angular guitars, languid and psychedelic, simply strummed and darkly jangly, accompanied by simple hand percussion, opener "How Do You Do Again" is crazy catchy, repetitive and mantra like, stream of consciousness lyrics, sort of sung/spoken, it's easy to hear the sort of influence this band has had on contemporary groups like Sic Alps (SA's Mike Donovan is a HUGE fan!), and that song sets the template, mostly one or two parts, looped and repeated, minimal lyrics, also repeated over and over, some songs have a distinctly fifties / sixties style pop sound, "Helsinki" is like some classic Beatles or Kinks song arranged for tinny guitar and hand drums. But it's right around "Space Message" that things start to get really weird, a brief blast of static, and garbled FX, with Tronics mainman (only man?) Ziro transmitting from the ether, his voice becoming equally garbled, very Conet Project sounding, and really, that signals a sort of seismic sonic shift, cuz the rest of the record, while rife with more punk-folk ditties, is also peppered with strange sonic experiments and collaged tape loops. There's the old timey rock and roll of "The Other Man" and then the murky droned out balladry of "Alone", that sounds like the saddest, warbliest Joe Meek outtake ever, but if any record was back loaded it's this one. Cuz then there's "Intro", which is in fact a sprawling bit of early sampledelia, bird song, weird voices, tape hiss, and strange effects, echo drenched samples of a sobbing woman, maudlin piano, snippets taped off the radio, bursts of jagged distorto guitar, little bits of orchestra, and symphonies, and what sounds like TV theme songs, all layered into a fantastic bit of psychedelic avant sound collage, and that leads right into what might be the greatest Tronics song EVER, "Shark Fucks", catchy, and anthemic, ridiculous lyrics, a main hook that KILLS, a wicked chorus, still just guitar and distorted drum (just one drum), with laid back, drawled vox, it will instantly get lodged in your brain, and you'll want to play it over and over and over, we have been, probably driving people insane, but we LOVE it! We're actually kind of amazed this song hasn't been covered a million times, it's SOOOOO good. Totally worth the price of admission, especially when he slips into some weird garbled underwater vocals, presumably just made with his mouth and not any actual FX. Once you make it past "Shark Fucks", if you ever do, there's the primitive minimal fuzz-guitar punk of "I'm A Diver", also crazy catchy, and then things finish off with another sound experiment, the two part "Piece For A Galaxy Bar Jukebox", the first part, all pulsing sci-fi electronics, a dark shadowy kosmische, that gets people coming up to see what we're playing, every time it comes on in the store, moody and minimal and haunting, it's only three minutes, but it's the kind of thing we could listen to forEVER. The second part is still more sci-fi electro weirdness, this one less shimmery and droney, and more percussive and rhythmic, percolating bloops, that explode into jagged shards of distorted synth, and again, we would have loved if it stretched out for 10 or 15 minutes instead of just two... So completely bafflingly brilliant, and utterly essential. A new unanimous favorite for sure. We also got another Tronics reissue, Say! What Is This?, which we'll review next time, but if you want that one too, just ask!

MPEG stream: Shark Fucks
MPEG stream: Intro
MPEG stream: I'm A Diver
MPEG stream: Piece For A Galaxy Bar Jukebox I
MPEG stream: How Do You Do Again
MPEG stream: Helsinki

Two new releases from UK boutique label Paradigms this list, both continuing Paradigms' shift toward sounds more abstract and ambient. An eclectic label for sure, we'd imagine there's definitely some fucked up heaviness lurking in the future, bit for now, we're happy to just drift through gorgeous hazy soundscapes with this latest disc from a group called Tropes, the work of German vocalist and soundscaper Susan Bauszat. The sounds here are delicate and crystalline, shimmery, gauzy and utterly dreamy, but not without some ominous stirrings, the music is all soft muted synths and strings, guitar, flute, violin, all washed out and blurred into reverb drenched streaks, the perfect backdrop for Bauszat's layered vocals, tangled harmonies, dense and complex, but ethereal and angelic. Think Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Islaja, 4AD record and even more modern cd-r stuff like Grouper and Inca Ore. Dark and mysterious, lush expanses of billowing glistening sound, underpinned by shortwave buzz, insectoid skitter, bits of subtle glitch, swooping backwards melodies and all manner of soft focus sonic texture, but at it's heart the sound of Tropes is a simple stirring folk, vocals lustrous and emotive, drifting dreamlike through clouds of shimmer, abstract tangles of acoustic guitar wound gently around minimal electronic rhythms,soft washed out whirs and haunting cinematic strings. So lovely. LIMITED TO 750 COPIES. Packaged in a mini lp style jacket, wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.

MPEG stream: Silence May Whisper
MPEG stream: What If I Say

Tropic Of Cancer released a couple of singles on the unsmiling techno imprint Downwards that went out of print rather quickly and became highly collectible, and now we have this 12" ep that collects the material from those singles (minus a Richard H. Kirk remix) of ethereally goth, electronic dourness. Then, Tropic Of Cancer was a duo of Camella Lobo and Juan Mendez (aka Silent Servant), and these liminal, elusive songs whisp hypnotically around a spindly electronic rhythms with chiming downtuned guitar strumming lifted from Roland S. Howard and a vocal ghostliness that makes us think of Grouper as a goth-girl. All great things!

MPEG stream: The Dull Age
MPEG stream: Be Brave

There's the amphetamine fueled goth of the Sisters Of Mercy and Bauhaus with all of their wastoid glam-punk vamping and sexually nihilistic anthems; and then there's the soporific romanticism that is equally as bleak, but softened by a couple bottles of blood red wine and a tear stained visage. This latter vantage point eschews any wild-mood-swing mania in favor of a maudlin introspection captured in the empty spaces of the latter halves of Joy Division's Closer and The Cure's Seventeen Seconds (or Faith, your choice). Here lies the aesthetic of Camella Lobo's Tropic Of Cancer. Over the past few years, Lobo has earned a cult following through her affiliations with the Sandwell District's Karl O'Connor (who produced this album) and Juan "Silent Servant" Mendez (who partnered with Lobo in writing much of the early material), although her work shares little of the brutalist architectural modes of Sandwell's techno thump. Instead, it is all ghostly whisps and a gloomy weightlessness suspended over skeletal melodies and the sparest of rhythms. Restless Idylls is her debut album and holds a very steady course set forth by those singles and EPs she crafted with Mendez. Highly spatialized, the songs push her haunted croon into dusty corners bumping up against spider webs and black lace. behind the foregrounded one-two-one-FOUR slow-motion drum programming that she uses almost exclusively. Between these two bookends, guitars, bass, and synths glide with an elegant ease, even as the moods she is crafting are ponderous and melancholy. "More Alone" is the closest thing that could be qualified as a single, with a considerably more uptempo variation on her heartbeat rhythms and death-disco synth lines. The uniform emotional torpor of the album becomes rather hypnotic once you get locked inside the album with its slow pulsing rhythms and tremulant wash of melting, sad-girl echo. Dejected and blighted, nice!

MPEG stream: Court Of Devotion
MPEG stream: More Alone
MPEG stream: Hardest Day

In conjunction with the archival material on the other 12" just released, Blackest Ever Black has issued three new tracks of glacially paced shoegazing, ethereal goth from Tropic Of Cancer, now just the solo work of Camella Lobo. These songs offer a deft update to the skeletal production of The Cure's Faith, with bleary synth wash, saddened guitar strum, and drum machines all drenched in sprawling reverb, over which Lobo's vocals conjure theatrical somberness with considerable panache.

MPEG stream: Stop Suffering
MPEG stream: I Woke Up And The Storm Was Over

We first heard from Tropical Trash on a split cassette with No Copper (we have a few copies left if you want one!), their track was definitely cool, but also listening to this 7" now a bit misleading, but it seems that perhaps that track was intended for the split, as it was super heavy and noisy and abstract, fusing jazzy avant noise with tripped out experimental abstraction. Which is definitely a bit different that what's to be found here, although not completely removed. TT seem to traffic in a sort of chugging churning noise rock, at least on the A side, thick angular riffs, tribal drumming, weird mathy arrangements, strange sing songy vocals, buzzing distorted melodies that mirror the vox, rife with some surprising poppiness, a distinctly indie rock vibe going on for sure. Loose and ramshackle, with the song occasionally devolving into a seemingly random free noise splatter before lurching right back into action. The B side offers up a handful of shorter songs and finds TT cranking up the volume a bit, definitely heavier and punkier, sounding in places like a supercharged Polvo or Pitchblende, weird chords, still more mathiness, but still plenty of melody and catchiness as well as the occasional punky blow out and some cool tripped out droniness. Features members of Siltbreeze outfit Sapat. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Pressed on white vinyl! In handscreened covers with photo copied inserts.

The new, five years in the making Witchcraft album is indeed awesome (and we finally just got the vinyl version in, which you'll find elsewhere on this week's list). But OLD Witchcraft, we still love too of course. So how 'bout some new old Witchcraft, sort of, in the form of the long awaited full-length debut from Troubled Horse, a band whose membership includes 3/4ths of the original Witchcraft lineup?! Rocking out with catchy riffs and vintage '70s sounds, these guys are everything we'd hope for from a band with such a pedigree. Comparisons to early Witchcraft are easy, but Troubled Horse get way more bluesy than Witchcraft ever has done, and add some swirling organ to the mix. The singer's style can be also more gruff and rough than that of Witchcraft's Magnus (though with his Swedish accent there's certain similarities too). But the basics are the same, Troubled Horse maybe stronger even in their overt Pentagram worship. The Pentagram is palpable here, indeed some of these tracks, like "Sleep In Your Head", "Shirleen" and especially "Don't Lie" (notable also for its Lovecraftian recitation halfway through) might as well BE new Pentagram songs. They certainly would be if the wizened one, Bobby Liebling, were on the mic. Other '70s era influences are evident too, of course, with tracks like "All Your Fears" coming closer to something a bit country-ish that the Rolling Stones woulda done in a sinister mood. Meanwhile, the twin guitar leads and harmonies of the swinging "Another Mans Name" bring to mind very early Wishbone Ash hard rockers like "Lady Whiskey". And the psych/garage rock side of this (as displayed straight out of the gate on stomping opener "Tainted Water") should appeal big time to fans of Troubled Horse's countrymen Dungen, to cite a more modern (but still retro) comparison. Furthermore, this is definitely for fans of bands like Witchcraft (natch), Horisont, Danava, Graveyard, Gypsyhawk, and Spiders (with whom they also share a member - keep an eye out, hopefully we'll have that band's new album in soon too). Packaged in a slipcased jewel case.

MPEG stream: Tainted Water
MPEG stream: Bring My Horses Home
MPEG stream: One Step Closer To My Grave

The "Icelandic Invasion" continues, as Shadoks reissues some more crucial '60s/'70s psych-prog action from that island nation. Last time we highlighted the groovy "hairy funk" heaviness of Odmenn. This time, two more: the sole album by Svanfridur (1972), and this one, the debut from Trubrot (1969). Both bands demonstrate definite Beatles influence, and do so well, but also are quite eccentric in their own right, which perhaps can be ascribed to their Icelandic heritage? Trubrot at their inception were already basically Iceland's #1 "supergroup", consisting of members of two popular R&B acts, Flowers and Hljomar. Big things were hoped for 'em, they even played for a few weeks in New York City, but they never really broke outside of Iceland, though they did go on to make several more well-regarded albums (which it would be nice if Shadoks would reissue as well). This one got them off to an excellent start, and as we also said about the Svanfridur reissue, we think it would go down well with fans of current Scandinavian psychsters Dungen. It's a mix of pop and prog, with bits of jazz and folk, and besides their own ambitious originals, it notably includes a diverse selection of cover songs, Trubrot doing Icelandic language interpretations of tunes originally performed by The Beatles ("Things We Said Today", to which they've added an amazingly kickass instrumental intro), Jose Feliciano, and The Supremes. And one more, the band's organist having worked up an arrangement of a song from the Richard Wagner opera "Tannhauser", which astonishingly enough got them some grief from the classical music authorities of the day. Ah, the old high brow/low brow battles fought by so many prog bands back then... Likewise, their originals (also all sung in Icelandic, of course) also range all over the place, from the serious and sombre (in keeping with the Wagner) to much zanier fare, like the "dinner party" sound effects that take over in the middle of "Konopujufirinn" to the 24-second long "Bryjenda Boogie" which in its brevity is basically the boogie equivalent of Napalm Death, we guess. On the opposite extreme is the album ending programmatic nine-minute "Afgangar", a schizophrenic "rock opera" of sorts. Here, and everywhere, Trubrot will go from fuzzed out groove to gentle female vocals to vaudeville music hall numbers to musique concrete... hey why not? We said they were ambitious. This reissue includes six bonus tracks mostly from a couple 1970 singles, and the cd booklet has lots and lots in the way of liner notes and photos.

MPEG stream: Sama Er Mer
MPEG stream: Pu Skalt Mig Fa
MPEG stream: Frelsi Andans

Here are the few facts we've gathered about this band Truck and their (apparently only) album entitled Surprise, Surprise: they were from faraway Malaysia, released this rare record back in 1974, and were obviously pretty big Beatles fans by the sound of it! And (less of a fact, more of an opinion) they're pretty rad. Sung in English, the ten tracks here are wonderful pop psych that could have come out of London in '68, by a band like Kaleidoscope... well, except for one element: the unexpected strains of spacey analog Moog synth heard in many of these songs. That helps make this Truck album extra-special. But it would be pretty special anyway, with its blend of dreamy, sunny melodies, lush studio orchestration, and a bit of fuzz guitar riffing. And while seemingly inspired by the Fab Four, Truck aren't just about them. We hear hints of The Who, The Creation, and even Joe Walsh in there just as much as ELO or Badfinger. But of course we'd recommend it to people who like obscure, Beatlesy bands like The Aerovons or Peru's We All Together. Released on cd (supposedly limited edition) by the Spanish label Guerssen, this is one of those cool out-of-the-blue reissues we're always stoked to hear! Nice!!

MPEG stream: Surprise, Surprise
MPEG stream: This Is Our Love Song

From the sounds of their rather raunchy tune "Titties", these gals had us wonderin' if they might be horning in on Peaches' sexed-up pottymouth territory. "Yikes!" we exclaimed. And they are in a way, at least here and there, lots of sassy shit kicking tough girl action, and of course plenty of the f-word peppering The Trucks' lyrics, but as a whole, theirs is a much less abrasive and much more endearingly perky approach. Snappy, quirky synth pop / electro / indie jangle with vocals that alternate between pep squad (Go! Team), pre-teen soul diva (Smoosh) and indie popster (Mirah). Lots and lots of girlish fun fun fun! But with a definite dark undercurrent, in both the lyrics and the melodies. Beware to the boys (or girls) who might wish to do them harm, split up the group, or break any hearts. You will be dealt with, in song form: a wicked musical lashing. But even at their darkest and meanest, they still manage to make it fun. Judging from the photos, their shows must be crazy wild and over the top, and while the music is totally different, they seem like the perfect band to share a bill with party black metallers JonnyX And The Groadies!

MPEG stream: Titties
MPEG stream: Man Voice

When we discovered the debut full length from Texas slowcore doomgaze trio True Widow, it was a revelation. How could a band like that exist and not be HUGE? Why were they not everyone's favorite band? No one we knew had heard of them, in fact, a few random folks claimed to not even like them. But we were smitten. More than smitten. OBSESSED. It had been years since a record, or a band, had blown us away like that. We contacted the label, ordered the record, made it our Record Of The Week, and sold HUNDREDS. Just at aQ! We had them play our showcase at South By Southwest, where they blew everyone away (even after SXSW asking us why we wanted them to play at all?!). We got them to play Noise Pop out here, and again, everyone was mesmerized, watching slackjawed, utterly entranced� That record, it made us zealots, we felt like we were spreading the good word, the True Widow sonic scriptures, trying to convert everyone we could. Playing that record incessantly, for everyone, all the time. And guess what? It seems like maybe all that proselytizing paid off. Oh and maybe it was the relentless touring those guys did, but c'mon, all we wanted was the rest of the world to catch on, and these guys (and gal) to be adored, and worshipped, their music to move people the way it moved us. So here we are, a couple years later, and lo and behold, True Widow find themselves on ultrahip label Kemado, and getting showered with the praise we knew they so deserved all along. And more important that any and all of that, it this here is a BRAND NEW True Widow record! Which we've essentially been waiting for since we first got the last record, and we're happy to report, it RULES. Not as immediately as catchy as the first one, although it's hard to be objective after hundreds of listens, but it hasn't take long for this one to sink it's claws in. The sound remains essentially the same, the guitars thick and liquid, super distorted, almost crumbling, the bass, dense and buzzy, the drums solid and motorik, all wreathed in a druggy haze, a psychedelic soft focus gauze, the boy / girl vocals laid back and languid, a sound like Beach House on Thorazine, or a doom metal Low, or some sort of impossible Codeine / My Bloody Valentine / 4AD hybrid, pressed onto a 7" and spinning at 16rpm, this is total cough syrup slo-mo jangle pop doom drift bliss. Warm and whirling, hushed and minimal, mesmerizing and enthralling and totally hypnotic. Opener "Jackyl" is a super distorted dream pop craw, the vocals sultry and witchy, the guitars pouring from the speakers like black tar, the song lit by streaks of sunlight through the slats of an old barn, blurred droney chugs spread out over swirls of low end thrum and lush reverbed shimmer. And then "Blooden Horse" begins, with some chiming minor key guitar, and when the band come in together, it's magical, super melodic, impossibly catchy, the vocals perfect, weary, but emotional, the various chiming melodies, the heaving downtuned doomic crush at one point, all woven into a perfect slab of slowcore doom jangle bliss. Our tendency is to go song by song by song, and we most definitely could here, but we'll just mention two more, "Skull Eyes" another perfect pop song, here cast in black, and wreathed in crumble and crunch, the female vocals so warm and enveloping, the melody so impossibly catchy, the boy/girl harmonies make this sound almost like like a slowed down drowsy Heavy Vegetable, the same perfect interplay, it's like it must be a cover of some classic pop song, but it's not, which is what makes it so good. And finally, the epic closer, "Doomseer", 9+ minutes of brooding slo-mo twang, the guitar not so much riffing as unfurling thick layers of rumble and whir, a sort of minimal dronerock ballad, laced with ethereal angelic background vox, a killer high end squall of psychedelic feedback near the end, and a groove that sounds like it's gradually melting before your ears, the whole thing somehow sounding impossibly too short at 9 minutes. So goddamn good. We want to go on, and describe every song in exquisite detail, but by now, it should be abundantly clear how we feel about True Widow, and about this record, and odds are, all it'll take is a few minutes of the below sound samples for you to be as utterly and completely under their spell as we are. Record of the year contender for sure... The vinyl version is limited to 2000 and hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Jackyl
MPEG stream: Blooden Horse
MPEG stream: Skull Eyes
MPEG stream: Doomser

Longtime AQ faves True Widow are one of those bands that people seem to naturally want to assign some new genre tag to. "Doomgaze" is one that gets tossed around, and "Stonegaze" is one that even the band use to describe themselves. But neither one of those really seems right. Terms like that seem to imply that True Widow just shoves adverse sounds together to try and find something new, which so many bands seem to do nowadays. Nor are they all that doomy or stonery when it comes right down to it ("Trollstigen" is the only song here that gets anywhere close to doom, or metal of any kind, but it's definitely to great effect). It's almost over thinking and under thinking the band simultaneously (if that makes sense). Like most great artists, they don't need to fit into a cozy genre - they just need to sound like themselves. And simply put, what True Widow sound like is very slow, very atmospheric, very effective rock music. You certainly wouldn't be miles off drawing comparisons to Codeine or Slowdive, but True Widow seem much less confined by scene constraints than many of the bands they get compared to. Circumambulation is at times quite dissonant (some of the riffs definitely recall Spiderland-era Slint) while at other times can be beautifully melodic. The production on the record is absolutely fantastic. There is space everywhere - giving the songs tons of room to breathe. The drums are perfectly understated. The duel vocals of Dan Phillips and Nicole Estill are gorgeously disaffected and aloof, and compliment each other perfectly (the circular nursery rhyme vocals melody of "Fourth Teeth" is a perfect example of how hypnotic a vocal part can be). The guitars flutter back and forth between a dirty bonfire crackle and a moody, almost country twang. It would be easy to describe True Widow's music as sad, but that's not really accurate. A better word is "moody" or "brooding" - maybe even a little bit sexy. A bit like the hint of a lost echo carried on a Summer breeze. A bit of an over the top descriptor?? Maybe! But don't be surprised if similarly poetic imagery crosses through your mind while you're strolling down an empty city street at 3 am, with only a pair of headphones and Circumambulation for company! Above all it's a perfectly subtle rock record that rewards patience and attention - utterly alluring and completely bewitching.

MPEG stream: Four Teeth
MPEG stream: I:M:O

What more can we say about Texas slowcore doomgaze heavies that we haven't already? We made their debut our Record Of The Week and sold TONS of them, they played our South By Southwest showcase and completely destroyed, they played the Noise Pop festival here and totally stole the show, they are without a doubt one of our favorite bands of the last few years, and we are so psyched people are finally discovering these guys (and gal). But then how could they not, one listen, the very first time we heard the very first song on that very first record, that was it. That record still gets played ALL the time, as does their equally ruling follow up, they're like some modern version of our nineties slowcore faves, Codeine, Low, Seam, but way heavier, their songs brooding and moody, the sound lush and blown out, and so utterly distinctive, at this point, they may be reminiscent of those other bands, but they sound like no one else. Hooks deftly woven into droned out dirges, fuzz drenched dream pop rendered in thick slabs of sun baked guitar, simple doomkraut drumming, and weary washed out vox, we could listen to this stuff forever, and pretty much do. This latest 12"s is a sort of odds and sods collection, with some alternate versions, and some tracks from the demo that were left off the new record, it might not be the best place for newbies to start, but really, even hearing this record first, we'd be surprised if anyone wasn't immediately blown away. The acoustic opener is an alternate version of the closing track on the most recent full length, a gorgeous acoustic folk number, which leads directly into the epic title track, the main reason to pick this up, 14+ minutes of hazy heaviness, of blissed out dreamdoom slowcore dirgery, the band letting it rip more than they often do, building to a serious psychedelic blow out, before finishing off with 4+ minutes of droned out abstract psych guitar drift. So awesome. "Bathyscaphe" is up next another track from As High As The Highest Heavens, which doesn't sound that different from the album version, but it's a beauty, and well worth hearing again. And again. And again. The last two tracks are from their 2009 demo, "S.Y.B.", a slithery sun dappled creep, gauzy and woozy and washed out, the distinctive shimmery guitar twang in full effect, the band drifting and meandering hypnotically, the whole this wreathed in warm fuzz guitar shimmer, and finally "S.F.H.D.", which displays the band at their poppiest, sounding like some lost nineties classic, the vocals powerful and not at all buried in the mix, and the boy/girl harmonies utterly divine. Obviously, everyone who bought either/both of the other True Widow records (and that's a LOT of you) is probably gonna want this, at least to tide you over until the next proper record, but even not as a stopgap, as a proper release, this half-hour ep stands up pretty gosh darn well, and is actually the sort of thing most other bands spend their whole careers trying to pull off... And FYI, we got as many copies as we could, but like a lot of vinyl-only Kemado stuff, this is limited, no doubt, and we don't know when/if we will be able to get more...

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Records like this come along so rarely. The sort of record that immediately reveals itself as something so more then just another disc to add to your collection, or the sort of record you play once or twice and then file. The second we heard this, we knew we had to hear more, and hear it over and over and over again. We discovered these guys online, heard a few songs and immediately bought a copy, and then set out to order them for the store (one of us was so obsessed, he even ordered all the records by the True Widow mainman's OLD band). Not sure what it is exactly about True Widow, it could be that after hundreds of records of rumbling dronemusic and blasting grim buzz and hushed ambient shimmer, that a band that writes songs, incredibly catchy and melodic and heavy songs, is exactly what our ears craved. Not to take anything away from the band, even if we were immersed in straight up pop and heavy rock (which we sort of are also), these guys (and gal) would most definitely shine. This is the sort of music we rarely hear anymore. We originally expected this to be metal, maybe some sort of heavy post rock metal hybrid, and while it is heavy, it's way more indie rock, or maybe slowcore, more like some haunting mix of the two, the guitars are thick and distorted, but not metallic, and they drift into slow drifting creeps as easily as they do pounding majestic roars. Other reviewers have described True Widow as 'sonic noir' and 'stonegaze', both of which are fairly appropriate, it's definitely dark and moody, certainly shoegazey, and a little bit stonery, but it's really just some sort of perfect gloomy heavy postrock. We hear Codeine, Low, Seam, the vibe is laid back and disaffected, weary and washed out, but still somehow completely rocking. Every song here is practically perfect, and each one segues seamlessly into the next, the sort of record where you don't just remember the melody or the lyrics, but which songs comes next, and how long the pause between songs is, the sound just so hypnotic and mesmerizing, a sort of lyseric doom pop, a druggy post rock, but the thing is, none of that really explains how addictive these songs seem to be. Literally, from the moment we first heard this record, we have not been able to stop listening to it. We've found other reviewers elsewhere who had the same reaction. Which speaks to the power of the songs, so well crafted, brooding, yet incredibly catchy. Just check out opener "Aka", with its strange mesmerizing main riff, the mysterious pause, and then when the band kicks in, it give you chills, and it's 40 seconds into the record. The second track, "Duelist", is one of the few tracks that features vocals from bassist Nicole Estill, her warm purr draped over big drums and a simple minimal bass throb, before the band launches into a slow burning minor key lope, only to crank up that opening part, infusing it with just a bit more muscle, and peppering the proceedings with a cool woozy chorus. Then there's "Sunday Driver", a gorgeous hazy reverby almost ballad, skeletal guitars, the drums still solid and loud, the vocals laid back and drugged out, the main melody so catchy, and a chorus that kills. Just writing this now, we've skipped back to the beginning of that song 3 times! This isn't really new, it came out last year, but we only just discovered it, and it had such an impact on us, we figured it was worth sharing with the rest of you. Cuz even if only a fraction of you have the same sort of response to True Widow that we did, it was well worth it. This has immediately leapt to the top of our year end best of list, even though it didn't come out this year, and hell, for some of us, True Widow immediately made it onto our best EVER list. And yeah we know, we traffic in hyperbole a lot around here, we can't help it cuz we love music so much and are excited to turn people on to the music we love, but there's no denying the empirical evidence, we can't seem to listen to anything else but this record. And that doesn't look like it will be changing anytime soon. Just listen to the sound samples, the first two tracks alone should do the trick. So goddamn good. On both cd and 2lp, the vinyl version is super deluxe (hence the price, sorry), 180 gram vinyl, full color ultra thick gatefold sleeve, two printed color inserts, pretty fancy, and very limited.

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This new recording has Cat Power's Chan Marshall guesting on a track and a fellow from the Supreme Dicks on some others.

Jonny Trunk is a true tastemaker. With his Trunk label he has unearthed gems from the likes of Basil Kirchin, John Baker, Sven Libaek, Desmond Leslie, and more more more. His fine taste for rare soundtrack grooves and left of center electronics has always totally hit the spot for us here in AQ land. But with the release of Scrapbook, Trunk mixes it up and shifts into the role of musical creator instead of just music aficionado and the results are totally terrific. If you've followed the releases on Trunk, his own musical stylings should make perfect sense as these are all instrumental jams and grooves that could be the sounds of some great lost library music collection. Short satisfying tracks filled with breaks you could totally imagine on a J Dilla or Madlib record. Trunk is extremely self deprecating in the funny liner notes and you can tell as someone who has released other people's exquisite music over the years he has been reluctant to release his own bedroom recordings from the last decade, and while we appreciate his humble and self-conscious musings they are so not necessary as Scrapbook more than holds its own, held up alongside any of the lost treasures he's helped shine a light on. We'll take Jonny Trunk's scraps anytime!

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We were never able to review the debut single from this Canadian dark-dance-pop-wave combo, cuz for whatever reason we could never get enough copies to list, which is a shame cuz we dug it like crazy. But this extended 12" single takes the dancier elements from that 7" and pushed them right up front, the A side a sizzling, pulsing, buzzy blast of bass heavy almost housey sounding new wave, with some thick bassbuzz that sounds almost dubsteppy, weird vox with a serious eighties vibe transforms this into something more than retro dancefloor worship, and then there's the last few minutes where the song (d)evolves into an ominous John Carpenter / Goblin like bassy, droney super cinematic outro. Killer. The flipside starts off with a brief bit of eighties electro pop, all synthy and propulsive, and seriously eighties, and again with some truly strange vox, before slipping into a remix of the track on the A side, which adds some heft to the proceedings, making it fuzzier and more distorted and a lot more shoegazey, all washed out and dreamy, but still finishing off with that same killer creepy outro. Cool gothy disco big hole 12" sleeve too...

The bizarre full frontal, naked-man-in-mid-air cover image definitely doesn't prepare you for the woozy moodiness inside. It's on Sacred Bones, and it definitely has that SB sound, a tripped out eighties style minimal electro pop, lush synths over simple programmed beats and minor key melodies, the vocals are strange and super distinctive, crooned and dramatic, there's an awesome bloopy moody synth solo too. Near the end of the track, the sound ramps up, the vocals become more heartfelt, and the track approaches Interpol / Cold Cave territory, albeit more lo-fi and home brewed. The B side is another chunk of warped electro synthwave, again the vocals even more unique, drawled and deep, heavily reverb, slipping into some serious falsetto, the sound lush and warm, the synths swirling and dreamy, everything warbly as if the pitch control on your turntable is malfunctioning, which only makes the sound that much more woozy and psychedelic.

We sorta flipped for these new wave electro gloom pop weirdos when we heard their first single, which sadly, we were never able to get enough of to list (although the A side is included here!). We did review the follow up 12", which found the band cranking up the dancier side of their sound, which seems to be the direction they've continued to move in with this, their debut, but, and this is important, this is not just some sort of retro Breakfast Club soundtrack worshipping MTV style eighties electro pop, these guys are fucking WEIRD. Fusing a sort of draggy dancy witch house sound, to classic eighties new wave tropes, adding plenty of cold wave chill not to mention a sort of M83 bombastic electro pop shoegaze vibe. Sound like a mess, and it sort of is, but a glorious, impossibly irresistible mess. Just check out the opener here, the oddly named "Shoom", and you'll be sold, a creepy industrial intro gives way to some pulsing eighties synths, and then when the vocals come in, total WTF, a mush mouthed super affected creepy old man mumble, the sound stripped down, creepy and haunting, and then when the beat kicks in, the vocals remain weird, just differently weird, a sort of maniacal whine, over some super propulsive krauty gloom, and then after a long instrumental stretch, where all the sounds seem to be melting and slipping out of tune, a super hooky melody swoops in and it sounds like some weird witch housey M83, and then female vocals come in, adding even more of a pop element, until those creepy male vox return and the song finishes up with a cool gothic electro dirge before disappearing into a cloud of electronics. So good! Another one of those cases where we listened to the first song at least ten times before we dug any deeper. But if that first one does it for you, the rest will hit the spot as well. Even when the sound is more traditionally new wave, those vocals add a twisted vibe to the proceedings, and the production is super tripped out, with fat slabs of bass buzz, big stuttery beats, some almost dubstep sounding bits, not to mention long stretches of brooding minimalism, that in places sound like they were cribbed from an Interpol B side, while others touch on Kraftwerk like robotic krautrock and woozy gloomy house music (?). The track from the aforementioned 12" is included here, as is the A side from that 7" we never got to list! Definitely a new weirdo goth pop gloom wave favorite for sure!

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We had a reissue of this beloved badass '70s psychedelic proto-metal obscurity some years back (list 127) on the now-defunct Monster label. Rockadrome kinda took over from Monster, and now they've gotten around to making this available again as part of their Vintage series. The graphic design has been improved, but otherwise it's the same as the previous edition (including the bonus tracks) with no additions. Here's what we said about it before: Reissue of a rare 1976 album by this legendary (among collectors anyway) trio of hard-rockin' Midwesterners. Truth & Janey were heavy and energetic and had some great songs but disco apparently killed 'em off. We're left with this album and the the bonus singles tracks that comprise this cd. Guitarist/vocalist doesn't quite have the voice for the two blues covers they attempt, but the rest is mighty good. These longhaired youngsters were into bellbottoms and fully-cranked Marshalls -- so if you are too, check this out! Another authentic '70s stoner rawk classic for today's fans to listen to and learn from!

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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

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Shadoks somehow does it yet again, digging up an obscure, fuzzed out psychedelic gem from one of the far corners of the globe. This one must have really required some digging, as the disc is not even an actual full album reissue, but a collection of mostly unreleased tracks by three different but related groups from the jungles of Venezuela - late '60s / early '70s underground acts pretty much unknown outside of their home turf. Obscure indeed, but pretty dang cool, makes you wonder about all the even more obscure bands never documented at all. Shadoks has already brought us one classic Venezuelan psych record by Ladies W.C. and this stuff is in much the same vein of freaky high energy hard psych and fuzzy popsike. These recordings, taken from 7" singles as well as unreleased tapes, date from roughly 1967 to 1972, and are all by these three bands that featured many of the same members, always including guitarist Josetio Romero. First came LSD, an acid rock act obviously, then they morphed into the Led Zeppelin influenced Tsee Mud (the name a reference to the bloodsucking, disease-bearing tsetse fly), and then finally the all-instrumental and super groovy Bacro. Romera was involved with some other bands too during this period, like one called Heavy Load, but none of the others left any recordings. He apparently even toured the USA (playing Madison Square Garden!) with the American R&B band The Del-Vikings, during the break between Tsee Mud and Bacro. As you might suppose, Romero was a pretty wild guitarist, starting off as a devoted Jimi Hendrix acolyte and going from there. None of these bands (who played live a lot and must have been great on stage) ever made a full-length lp which is a shame but at least this collection brings together what they did record, and it really works as a cohesive set, basically a 'best of' one band with three names. Our favorite tracks might be the instrumentals by Bacro, those are just killer grooves, no vocals needed. But ALL the tracks are pretty great, the ones with wailing vocals to go with the wailing guitar too. There's no duds, all the tracks are packed with hairy funk, primal prog moves and lumbering, heavy, Hendrix-y riffs out the wazoo. There's a few moody moments but things usually start swinging seconds later. Some of the time, Tsee Mud et. al. come across sorta like a South American James Gang, cool! Also for fans of Los Dug Dugs for sure, and even African psych stuff like Witch. Further proof that awesome, unknown bands lurked in garages the world over, back then! The cd booklet includes lengthy liner notes in both English and Spanish, along with lyrics, vintage photos and graphics. Although, despite all the detailed information provided, the cd booklet doesn't do a very good job of identifying which of the eleven tracks on this disc were by which bands, though you can probably figure it out if you read carefully, if it even matters, which it doesn't really. FYI, also available on vinyl, but it's hella expensive ($45), that's how Shadoks do, we can special order it though, just ask.

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